That the whole story was invented by Plato as a literary ornament or allegorical argument, or that he thus utilized a story which he had really received from Egypt, but which was none the less a myth, was maintained even among the early Platonists, and was the view of Longinus. Even after the discovery of America many writers recognized the fabulous touch in it, as Acosta,[438] who thought, “being well considered, they are rediculous things, resembling rather to _Ovid’s_ tales then a Historie of Philosophie worthy of accompt,” and “cannot be held for true but among children and old folkes”—an opinion adopted by the judicious Cellarius.[439] Among more recent writers, D’Anville, Bartoli,[440] Gosselin,[441] Ukert,[442] approved this view. Humboldt threw the weight of his great influence in favor of the mythical interpretation, though he found the germ of the story in the older geographic myth of the destruction of Lyctonia in the Mediterranean (Orph. _Argonaut._, 1274, etc.);[443] while Martin, in his work on the _Timaeus_, with great learning and good sense, reduced the story to its elements, concluding that such an island had never existed, the tale was not invented by Plato, but had really descended to him from Solon, who had heard it in Egypt. Prof. Jowett regards the entire narrative as “due to the imagination of Plato, who could easily invent ‘Egyptians or anything else,’ and who has used the name of Solon ... and the tradition of the Egyptian priest to give verisimilitude to his story;”[444] and Bunbury is of the same opinion, regarding the story as “a mere fiction,” and “no more intended to be taken seriously ... than the tale of Er the Pamphylian.”[445] Mr. Archer-Hind, the editor of the only separate edition of the _Timaeus_ which has appeared in England, thinks it impossible to determine “whether Plato has invented the story from beginning to end, or whether it really more or less represents some Egyptian legend brought home by Solon,” which seems to be a fitting conclusion to the whole matter.